(173al) Computational Design of Therapeutic Drug Formulations to Control Protein Interactions

Biologics are very common as theraepeutic drugs, particularly monoclonal antibodies. One downside of biologics is their tendency to phase separate or aggregate at concentrations needed for administration. One strategy to improve the behavior of the drug in solution is to incorporate small molecule additives, excipients, that disrupt interactions between the drug molecules. To find the ideal excipient for a given biologic drug is a very important, yet elusive problem. Here we present a framework to understanding the competition between drug-drug and drug-excipient interactions at the molecular level. This dissects the problem into two problems that are much more manageable for current computational methods.